Tuesday, July 10, 2012

Background & Significance: Now that we're really rapidly approaching the home stretch of this blog, I think it's become terribly clear which eras of Doctor Who I enjoy and which I do not. I've come to find the Pertwee era one of the most fun eras while I've really come to dislike a vast majority of Troughton due to its lack of both ambition and originality (which is unfortunate, because I love his Doctor). But the era that I have to always mention right up front is the Hinchcliffe/Holmes era. I went into it initally with my arms crossed and without any real desire to partake. "I'd like the comedy", I thought. "I have no taste for horror."

I was wrong about that. Hinchcliffe/Holmes is almost definitely my favorite era in Classic Who. I'm always in the mood for one of their stories because they're just so damn enjoyable (if not flawless) and it really is one of the most consistent runs of Doctor Who in terms of sheer quality. The run of stories from "Robot" to "Horror of Fang Rock" is one of the most outstanding runs in all of Doctor Who history where the lows are more than watchable and the highsare nigh untouchableand someof the bestDoctor Whoeverproduced. What's here is the stuff of legend, and regardless of quality I'm always eager to jump back in whenever I need a Doctor Who fix because what's here is so good, if nothing else than aesthetically. Fortunately there's usually a bit more to go on than pure aesthetics more often than not, but other times? Shrug. That's what you got.

With all that in mind let's talk about "Revenge of the Cybermen".

"Revenge of the Cybermen" is the black sheep of the Hinchcliffe/Holmes era. It's widely regarded as their weakest story and "a mess" to put it mildly. But why is this one singled out when "Android Invasion" is an equally impressive candidate? My guess is "Android Invasion" benefits from being buried in the middle of its season, in between two dynamite Robert Holmes stories whereas this story is tacked on at the end of a very strong season, estranged from everything else by what's been called the best Dalek story of all time. That's to say nothing of the pressure of giving the Cybermen a return after a six and a half year absence, nor the pressure of making it something of an informal sequel to "The Ark in Space". Of course, this pressure was only magnified by the return of former script editor and co-creator of the Cybermen Gerry Davis coming back after seven and a half years to pen their return.

Okay. So. The first time I watched this story I didn’t
dislike the first part. This time? I don’t dislike it either.

Right off, there’s a lot to like here. For one, it’s nice to
be on Nerva again. It’s a cool and great set and there’s a rich built-in
history through which the show can explore so we get the same setting with a
completely different dynamic. This isn’t the Nerva of “Ark in Space”. No, that
was a giant space station filled with the last remnants of humanity for
salvation now that the Earth has been deemed uninhabitable. Here we have a
notably younger Nerva. This is a space station in the middle of the solar
system that has its own functioning “ecosystem” as it were. There’s crew
quarters and control rooms being used. No people in cryogenic stasis here.

No. Instead we have dead bodies littering the corridors, an
unstoppable plague virus, and the crew complement reduced to three with an
extra civilian survivor thrown in for
good measure.

All of this is really good stuff and totally Hinchcliffe/Holmes.
The scene where the TARDIS crew comes across all of the dead bodies is stunning
and impossible to convey without the image. Hell, compare it to the last time
we saw the Nerva beacon with the completely empty corridors and the eerie haunting
quality it had. Here it’s a completely new way that doesn’t quite leave you.
It’s a moment of pure horror and designed to get your brain moving with the
promise of mystery. Why are there so many dead people? Are our heroes in
danger? Why didn’t they clean up the bodies? How horrible must it be to have no
one around to do clean up on the bodies? Hell, they all died in the corridors.
That’s jacked.

This is the stuff that makes me love the Hinchcliffe/Holmes
era as much as I do. Within the first five minutes my attention is captured, I
am enraptured, and I need to know what will happen next.

What does happen next is less than stunning. The goings on
of the space station are far from living up to the promises of seeing dead
bodies strewn about the corridors. The characters are poorly sketched out and
interchangeable. The only one who’s terribly memorable at all is Kellman
because he is both devious and clad in a white turtleneck and a black smoking
jacket, and sports a silly haircut. But still, he’s engaging as of now because we
have no idea what’s going on with him and where he’s going to end up taking us.
He calls the Cybermen? That’s not good. He destroys the records and is spying
on people? That’s not good either. And he tries to kill The Doctor. That’s his
death wish right there.

Right behind him is Tom Baker, who’s lovely in this.
Absolutely lovely. I love the way he interacts with all of the different
characters as he pieces together all the extraneous elements of this Nerva
mystery he finds himself embroiled in. Apparently Gerry Davis wasn’t sure how
to write him and chose to write 2nd Doctor rather than trying to
figure out how to write for a still-new Doctor. And it works. You have The
Doctor running around, getting into silly physical comedy bits (like the arm
through the door scene) or running off to investigate another lead, his brain
working in overdrive to put all the
pieces together before it’s too late. And even amidst all this there’s him
being tremendously silly (the time ring stuff) while also being able to turn
out some tremendously clever stuff (the three talking points about the virus).
It’s really fantastic Doctoring and really helps cover up the cracks where this
episode might not work so well.

Where it doesn’t work so well is with the Cybermats. Because
for some reason they have to be snakes.

Cybermats date back to the last story Gerry Davis wrote for Doctor Who, in which the Cybermen used
Cybermats as proxies to get at the humans while they were stuck in their tombs.
And in that story the Cybermats were little more than dish scrubbers with eyes
and antennas. But they were remarkably effective because for all their small
size there’s something tremendously sinister about them. Here Hinchcliffe and
Briant go for a different interpretation of the Cybermat, one that’s long and
snake like and jumps like older Cybermats. And I understand the decision, but
at a certain point I don’t think that works. These Cybermats are so massive it
makes it hard to believe they can get into small places or sneak up because
they’re just… so conspicuous and hard to miss.

That said, the cliffhanger is remarkably effective. We know
that the Cybermats are responsible for this plague and for Sarah to get bitten
puts a real clock on what happens next. It’s the worst thing that could happen
at this moment in time so it makes for a strong cliffhanger moment and sets us
up for at least some excitement in the next episode.

So so far it’s quite good. What’s here is quite enjoyable.
It’s not perfect, but hey. I don’t hold Doctor
Who to a standard of “perfect”. Certainly not after the first episode, and I
don’t even apply it to Hinchcliffe/Holmes. As far as I’m concerned, this is
good enough for now. I’m just worried about the fact that all judgment in this
story is on the next three parts and not solely on this one.

Part 2:

So it’s not that this story is bad, it’s just a little
haphazard. At least, that’s how it appears in this episode.

Perhaps the slyest thing this story does is separate The
Doctor from Sarah and Harry without making it feel contrived. I mean, “Genesis”
is one of the best Doctor Who stories
ever and it was never particularly subtle about the way it separated the three
of them and it was often clumsy and because that’s what the story needed next
or what have you. But here’s it’s notably different and sure, it’s contrived,
but it’s papered over so well that you don’t really realize what’s happening
until well after its happened, which is to be applauded as far as I’m
concerned.

At the end of the last episode Sarah was jumped by a
Cybermat and it infected her with its deadly venom (the plague from the
previous episode). The solution (as The Doctor also pointed out in the last
episode) was to run the victim through a Transmat, which would separate the
native genetics from the invasive biological agent.

This leaves the opening beat of this story to resolving
Sarah’s infection, which they do by Transmatting Sarah down to the planet Voga.
It’s a thrilling sequence. Sarah dying in Harry’s arms while the Doctor races to
get the Transmat pad working makes for compelling drama. And once it’s resolved
we discover that the Transmat has no way of getting them back because it’s been
sabotaged by Kellman. But it’s too late. The damage is done because Sarah and
Harry have started to go out and explore Voga.

Six minutes in and we have our A-story and our B-story.

Unfortunatley, it’s all a bit of a muddle.

For starters, on the Nerva beacon nothing happens because
The Doctor and everyone are essentially waiting for The Cybermen to show up,
aren’t they? There’s nothing they can do with Kellman except do a really neat
moment where they threaten him with a Cybermat because he’s a Cyberman tool who
needs to wipe that smug smirk off his face. Even when they’ve managed to scare
him into giving him what they need to fix the Transmat it turns out to be
useless to them because Sarah and Harry are nowhere to be found because they
left the Transmat circle and now are somewhere on Voga. So that storyline is a
wash. And then the Cybermen are coming and as if the story isn’t going to let
the Cybermen into Nerva, they kinda just break into the place, don’t they? So
the whole thing is just massive filler while we wait for the Cybermen show up.

Speaking of The Cybermen showing up, did anyone else ever
notice that the Cybermen often don’t make their entrance into the story until
the “middle” cliffhanger of a given story? Just me? Okay.

The stuff on Voga doesn’t fare much better. I mean, the
Sarah and Harry stuff is entertaining and always welcome. It’s particularly
funny to see Harry (who’s still a closet misogynist) tell Sarah Jane he thinks
she has cankles. They make a wonderful team. And the location work on the
caverns of Voga is really, really excellent stuff. It’s well lit and
well-choreographed to maximize the danger and excitement of what’s happening.
The levels and space are incredibly well defined and well put together to make
Voga seem like a dangerous place.

Where the story fails, as far as I’m concerned, is in the
Vogan conflict. To be honest, I don’t really about what’s happening. We have
two factions on Voga who are both something or something and one is making a
power play something something and it’s all just… not clear.

I mean, the planet of Gold itself is interesting. And it’s
hilarious that they talk about the prosperity they have because they have a
planet that’s basically nonstop gold. As if that would be some sort of surprise
or unseen consequence of having an entire planet with nonstop gold. Likewise,
the show gets a lot of mileage out of the concept because it feeds on the human
greed that’s such a Holmesian staple. Everyone wants the gold planet. Harry
loves the gold. Kellman sure as hell loves the gold. The Cybermen want the gold
(but for different reasons). Hell, it’s so bad even the Vogans are fighting
over it within their own society.

But it’s nowhere near as engaging as it should/could be.
Davis makes a point to attempt to explain away what’s happening, but I wish he
waited, to be honest. Exposition is better delivered as late as possible. All
that matters is Sarah and Harry stuck in the middle of this conflict they don’t
understand. I don’t need to understand that they’re dropped in the middle of a
giant turf war. I don’t need to understand the leaders or the players, especially
when they all tend to look incredibly similar. I mean, for god’s sake, it’s not
even helped by Kevin “Mavic Chen/Tobias Vaughan” Stoney, who gives a very
restrained performance because his character is not a bloody psychopath. And
that’s all well and good I suppose, but I don’t love Kevin Stoney in his other Doctor Who stories because he seems like
a sane person.

So now at the end of this episode, halfway through we can
see that this story is already heading in a not great direction. It’s far from
unwatchable, but it’s definitely not the sort of thing you’d expect from
Hinchcliffe/Holmes, and I mean that in a bad way.

Part 3:

Oh man did this fall apart.

It’s weird to see a four part story that is impossibly
padded. Sure padding is going to happen in a story that takes a hundred minutes
to tell. Likewise padding is most likely to happen in the third part, where the
writer has already laid out all the relevant plot lines in the story but can’t
quite start to wrap everything up yet because he/she has to save all that
storyline for the final episode. Of course, if the story is a weaker story,
part three is where that episode will inevitably start to fail. It’s also the
point where the story can shine the most. Throw in some character development
or some intriguing concept to spin the wheels for a little bit longer. That’ll
get ya.

Unfortunately, this story can’t possibly do any of that.
Because there’s nothing to this story.

The vast majority of this episode features the Cybermen
implementing the plan that they’ve been meaning to implement for the whole
bloody story. Their plan is to destroy Voga, which they plan to do by strapping
bombs to three folk (specifically The Doctor and two Nerva crew members) and
send them into the planets core. Accompanied by two Cybermen guards, these
Cyberbombs will detonate and crack the planet in two(?) thereby destroying Voga
once and for all. Try to remove the Cyberbombs and they explode. Deviate from
the desired course to the center of the planet, the Cyberbombs explode. So The
Doctor and everyone are in a dangerous place.

But this whole thing is full of holes. If you stop to think
about it for two seconds the whole thing falls apart.

First off, if the bombs go off in the tunnels and not at the
center of Voga the Cybermen plan completely fails. So if The Doctor and the
crew decide to stop walking at any point and the Cybermen detonate the bombs
the whole plan goes to smithereens. Likewise, why not just remove the bombs at
the top? Sacrifice yourself and stop the Cybermen plan? I mean, you’re dead
anyways. And fine. You’re not going to do that. But seriously? The Cybermen
decide to completely abandon the “we’re escorting them” plan in favor of a “let’s
go on a rampage to snipe all the Vogans” plan. Which doesn’t make a lick of
sense to me. Why are they doing that? So that we can get endless sequences of
Cybermen shooting shit out of their heads? Ugh. Please. What a waste of time.

And the whole Cyberbombs plot line basically descends into
set pieces about walking. It’s like watching Lord of the Rings all over again.

On top of all this Harry isn’t given a thing to do and Sarah
returns to Nerva only to skulk around in the shadows and not accomplish
anything. I know Kellman had an alliance with the Cybermen and one of the Vogan
factions, but that whole storyline doesn’t go anywhere. And it’s all just
running around with next to no substance. And yes, the caves are pretty and go
a long way to making this story at the very least watchable. But that doesn’t
save it. Not even close. This is weak sauce. Major major weak sauce. I don’t
even care that Harry is loosening the strap of The Doctor’s bomb. The lack of
storytelling about his meeting up with The Doctor was… insane.

To ice off the cake, this story started with the dead
littering Nerva corridors. Look how it’s all just fallen apart and devolved
into a boring Cybermen runaround.

Part 4:

At the end of this episode, there’s a sequence in which The Doctor
flies the Nerva beacon towards Voga and pulls out of the dive, spinning around
and around the small planet at incredible speed. It’s the lowest orbit I’ve
ever seen and still at the end he manages to pull out of the spectacular
maneuver and propel the Nerva Beacon out into space.

As an image it makes me laugh, because it’s exactly what
this story wants to have happen. By the time we’re at the end of this there’s
so much happening and happening unintelligibly and in just a mash up of “THROW
EVERYTHING AT THE SCREEN” that it feels like the story’s in freefall, heading
for certain demise by crashing on Voga’s surface. But unlike its actual content,
the story really just crashes and burns on the surface, leaving a hot streak of
metal and story threads all along the planet’s surface.

To add insult to the injury of a disaster of pretty epic
proportions, it’s clear that Robert Holmes realized how much of a fustercluck
this is. Once The Doctor has rescued Voga and the Cybermen have been destroyed
Harry somehow manages to Transmat up to Nerva, only to be rushed into the
TARDIS and onto their next adventure. There’s no wrap up. All that happens is
The Doctor shouting “Come on!”, because he cannot possibly imagine being stuck
in this trainwreck for another second.
It’s damn hilarious because it’s not a mistake at all. It’s a sprint out
the door to see how fast they can get out of there. Amazing. And that’s…. I
just don’t see it as a mistake, especially given how heavily Robert Holmes
rewrote this story based on Gerry Davis’s original script.

That’s the biggest amazing thing about this. This is what it
looks like after Robert Holmes rewrites the shit out of it.

And honestly, there isn’t a whole hell of a lot to like.
What’s here is tremendously silly and laughably bad. The Cybermen’s capture of
Sarah results in the Cybermen interrogating her about what she knows. In an
effort to save her own skin (and the skin of Nerva) she blurts out the whole
plan about the Vogan rocket that is around to blow the Cybermen to kingdom
come. And that’s not the questionable part. Nor is it questionable to have The
Cyberleader laugh in her face an say “you’re saying that just to save your own
skin!”

What’s laughable is that Sarah then name drops Kellman and
suddenly the Cyberleader panics and realizes this was all a setup and oh my god
there IS a rocket.

It’s this level of insanity that just doesn’t fly for the
Hinchcliffe/Holmes era. It’s an era known for strong, believable characters and
tremendously tight plotting. It’s not got a whole lot of what I like to call “Doctor Who insanity”, which is tacky
B-movie stuff like The Doctor dressing up like a Welsh milkman. This Cybermen
beat is total cutesy old school madness Doctor
Who and doesn’t fit in the oeuvre of this era at all, especially not this
budget.

Because what else happens in this episode? One of the
Cyberbomb dudes kills himself to kill some Cybermen. The Doctor gets a
hellacious back massage from the
Cyberleader. The Vogans launch their rocket. The rocket misses the station and
instead is flown into the Cybermen’s spaceship. The Doctor slingshots a bloody
space station around a bloody planet. There’s a coup or something on Voga and
the one Vogan is killed or something but not before he launches his legacy
rocket of legacy. The Doctor manages to Cybermat virus a Cyberman and there’s
no taking out any Cybermen with any gold despite that that’s the key major plot
point of this story. So. That’s a thing.

It’s just sloppy and I can’t say anything more about it because
there’s nothing left to say. It’s just completely insane.

Final Thoughts?: It's a story that's completely deserving of its reputation, although with caveats.

The biggest problem with this story is it was commissioned by the outgoing production team and foisted upon the Hinchcliffe/Holmes era and they weren't able to do anything about it because it'd already been commissioned. They were burdened with a subpar writer and a subpar throwback story they couldn't do anything with. At least with "Genesis of the Daleks" Terry Nation was attempting something new and revolutionary with his creations. That story had a rich mythology to build off of, a devious new character in Davros. It had a rich moral quandry in The Doctor allowing the creation of the Daleks.

This story has none of that.

Really, it's not just a bad Cybermen story, it's a bad story. The Cybermen are entirely inconsequential to the plot. Their whole plan is to gain revenge on Voga because it's a threat to them. There's nothing new or revolutionary about them. They have giant guns on their heads, but that's hardly a reason to bring them back and it's completely dropped later. The story itself is more focused on the internal politics of Voga than it is the Cybermen. I mean, there's not even a half-decent runaround involving the Cybermen in the middle of this story. It's just them marching (which is what you do with the Cybermen) and firing head cannon shots for no discernable reason.

It's a waste. Sarah and Harry are sidelined for the whole story, replaced by the one Vogan and the other Vogan getting more play than either of them.

If anyone comes out shining in this it's Tom Baker, who's on great form here. Of particular note is the time he speaks Shakespeare over the fallen Cyberman. Genius.

All this, though, would play completely differently if given a different production team. Sure, this story has tons of money thrown at it. Almost too much, really. It looks like the most frakkin expensive story in the entire season and all that is still not enough to save it. But if this had been a Graham Williams era story I feel like it would still have been better received. Drop the budget of this story and make it no real caves and all sets and we'd probably be having a different conversation.

But the Hinchcliffe/Holmes era has never been allowed to get away with this. It sticks out like a sore thumb, especially because it's Tom Baker's one and only confrontation with the Cybermen. If you're a Cybermen fan and a Tom Baker fan you're totally shit outta luck because this is what you got and these Cybermen are barely Cybermen. the costumes are terrible. The voices are terrible. The characterization is off. And all of that adds up to the only real blemish on what's a pretty frakking perfect record. And because the rest of the era is so miles ahead of this one and never REALLY collapses into an unintelligible mess this gets slammed.Put this up against most other Doctor Whothough and it probably stands up as exceedingly average.

I guess that says more about the Hinchcliffe/Holmes era than it does about this story. Can't win 'em all. Not even them.

Next Time!: 2nd Doctor! Global politics! Doubles out the wazoo! Weird Spanish accents! And a freaky-deaky double dose of Troughton! "The Enemy of the World!" Coming Next Tuesday!

3 comments:

To be honest I think the original storyline would have served this story better. It was Robert Holmes who added the ridiculous Vogans, originally there was to be the much more interesting concept of a group of miners left down there by Kellman for 25 years, the finale would have been the destruction of the Cybermen by having their respirators clogged up by gold dust fired at them from the Cybermats re-programmed by the Docy. If only Mr Holmes had tightened up the story instead of adding gratuitous story elements like the Vogans this story could have worked...

I having read the Gerry Davis original script for this story and the plot of the Cybermen taking over the space station to destroy the nearby asteroid of gold populated by human miners is better than what appears on screen in billions of ways. I also think the vogans were ghastly and I would have happily never have missed them if they had not be brought in to replace the human miners, this story for the Cybermen was appalling and it is no wonder we do not see the Cybermen again for nearly seven years until Earthshock with dr 5 and also Earthshock is a rehash of old cyberstories.

I think this story's original script with the concept of the Cybermen taking over nerva space station to destroy the asteroid made of gold was in my view millions and billions better than the broadcast story. I also do not think, the rewrite was necessary and the vogans were bloody ghastly. I think the human miners were a much better concept all round and I heard Gerry Davis was very annoyed with Bob Holmes rewrites of his script

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I'm a recentish Doctor Who fan (Summer 2008, really) who loves experiencing and discussing Doctor Who. From its triumphs to its flaws to its high points to its lows, we talk about it all and nothing is not fair game.

This blog discusses all the Doctors from Hartnell to McGann, covering all The Doctor Who stories from the classic run on television. Other people focus on the directing and the music and the performances, but my focus (because I work in television) is on the actual production, writing, and construction of these stories and you can find all of our entries via the index at the top of the blog.

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